The sales cycle is already tough. From finding prospective customers to engaging with them via different
channels, nurturing them, generating quotes, and closing deals, small sales teams carry a lot on their
shoulders.
There are lots of repetitive tasks. Data entry takes up a lot of time, and you still need to monitor your sales
accounts and generate useful reports.
This can easily mean wrangling multiple sheets and folders and setting reminders to fire off reports at the
right time.
Plus, you must monitor your competitor’s prices regularly to ensure you’re pricing your offerings
competitively – another distraction that eats up your time.
So you try and mitigate those problems. You get a CRM system for contact management, create several
spreadsheets for sales reporting, and buy a bunch of other software to help you prospect better and
engage with your customers.
But all this does is create more work for your overburdened sales team. You now have new tools to learn,
more documents to organize, and more software costs to pay.
There’s a Better Way to Improve Your Sales Workflow
If you can relate to the above, it needn’t be that way. There’s a better way to improve your sales workflow
without spending more money on tools and more time on sheets.
Imagine a sales workflow where leads are automatically searched for, captured, and stored in your CRM
system – no matter their data sources and formats.
Where generating a quote happens in seconds, not minutes, and where sales reports get auto-generated
each week or month and emailed to the right people.
Picture a scenario where your competitors’ pricing pages are automatically scanned to notify you of any
changes.
You can snap back now. This world exists already, and it’s powered by an incredibly useful technology
called Robotic Process Automation.
What is Robotic Process Automation?
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) involves deploying software robots (also known as ‘bots’) to automate
manual, repetitive work through artificial intelligence and machine learning.
To illustrate the concept of an RPA tool, picture a small robot standing next to your desk.
On the first day, you come into work and type away normally. This robot watches how you work and learns
all your keystrokes and workflows.
The next day, you arrive at your desk and activate the robot. The robot then runs through your daily tasks:
sending emails, searching for prospects, capturing their data, storing it in your CRM, and generating
invoices for sales order processing.
All at warp speed, without skipping a beat.
You step out for coffee, come back half an hour later, and the robot has generated your weekly emails,
updated your competitor pricing log, and routed your customer support emails to the right people.
Amazing, innit?
RPA technology is an incredible way to free up time for each sales rep, boost productivity, streamline your
business process, and improve the customer experience.
It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s actually possible to implement without coding a single
line.
With intelligent automation from RPA, your sales workflow gets a major boost.
The Benefits of RPA
It’s hard to overstate the benefits of robotic process automation in sales.
As your digital workforce, RPA helps you complete each task faster, from executing sales orders to supply
chain and customer relationship management.
Depending on the type of RPA solution you implement, here are just a few benefits of RPA to your sales
team:
- Data: A software robot can scrape data on websites and documents and copy them to other apps
and docs - Accuracy: Sales automation reduces human error in data entry and quote generation
- Flexibility: You can configure and amend RPA bots to suit your sales needs
- Cost reduction: Automating manual tasks reduces the need for extra hires
- Customer service: RPA bots can handle sales inquiries automatically
- Scalability: With RPA, you can scale your sales operations faster
- Consistency: RPA robots deliver predictable results every time
- Bandwidth: RPA frees you up to focus on higher-priority tasks
- Speed: RPA means you can work and deliver results faster
RPA Use Cases in Sales
What does RPA look like within a sales context? Here are six common use cases to illustrate the benefits of
robotic process automation:
- Contract and document management
- Data and document management
- Competitor price monitoring
- RFP and bid site monitoring
- Sales reporting
- Sales follow-up
RPA Use Case #1: Contract and Document Management
A typical sales cycle involves generating quotes, preparing sales documents, and signing contracts. This
process can take anywhere up to a few hours or days.
To cut down this time, an RPA bot can prepare documents based on CRM contact data, email the
documents through your email app, and update the deal’s status in your CRM system automatically
RPA Use Case #2: Data and Document Management
A small business may spend up to 5 hours each week creating and managing contracts and updating their
contact database. The larger the database, the higher the chances of introducing data hygiene issues.
That’s where RPA comes in. An RPA bot can gather contact data, identify missing information, scrape online
sources to enrich incomplete data, and update your CRM system automatically
RPA Use Case #3: Competitor Price Monitoring
Depending on your business, you might have to spend one to two hours each week tracking your
competitors’ prices.
An RPA bot can handle this for you. Your bot can browse competing websites and collect data into a
spreadsheet, notifying you when there’s a significant change.
RPA Use Case #4: RFP and Bid Site Monitoring
Say a large part of your revenue comes from fulfilling bids and RFPs. You might spend up to an hour each
week monitoring RFP websites and downloading bid documents onto your system.
To save time, you can deploy an RPA robot to crawl those bid sites, browse RFPs, and notify you when a
clear opportunity emerges. The bot can also download files into designated folders and extract data from
those files
RPA Use Case #5: Sales Reporting
Many small businesses generate reports each week or month to track activity and revenue. Manual
reporting sees small teams spending hours compiling, analyzing, and sharing this data.
Robotic process automation can automatically gather, enter, and analyze data while sharing periodic
insights with the right people.
RPA Use Case #6: Sales Follow-up
Selling involves following up regularly – whether with customers, suppliers, or officials. For example, you
might need to follow up on outstanding payments from specific clients – ignoring this could cost you
revenue.
An RPA bot can automatically check your clients’ payment statuses, create opportunities in your CRM, and
send follow-up emails.
Disclaimer: RPA won’t solve all your business problems – it merely speed them up. If you’re sending out
ineffective sales emails, your RPA bots will simply send out more of those emails quickly and possibly harm
your deal close rate.
But done right, RPA is an incredible sales power-up to implement in your business. The overall benefits of
RPA include less manual work, faster sales cycles, more closed deals and revenue, and lower time and
labor costs.
These benefits compound powerfully to grow your business and reduce costs over time.
How to Implement RPA for Sales
If you’re looking to implement RPA for sales motions while mitigating the weak spots in your sales process,
there are a few steps to follow:
- Map out your sales process
- Determine your integration needs
- Assess your coding comfort level
- Determine your budget and timeline
Firstly, map out your sales process. How do you handle your sales cycle – prospecting, engagement,
nurturing, quoting, and closing? Which parts are currently done manually?
Secondly, determine your integration needs. Which apps and services do you use in your daily sales
workflow?
This can include email automation platforms, contact enrichment apps, and productivity software like
Google Suite. You’ll integrate RPA software into these tools.
Thirdly, assess your coding comfort level. Are you comfortable with technical coding? If so, a low code
RPA solution might work best for you. If not, a no-code RPA solution might be a better option.
Fourthly, determine your budget and timeline. This is crucial because not all RPA solutions are created
equal.
Depending on how soon you need to implement an RPA solution for your sales needs, you may have to
budget for different costs and timelines.
Thrive Automation Helps Sales Teams Implement Robotic Process Automation
Thrive Automation is Canada’s premier RPA implementation partner. We’ve helped small sales teams run
more smoothly and drive more results through RPA. Check out our case studies to see how RPA can
improve your sales workflow.
Our robotic process automation experts would love to learn about your sales needs and answer your
questions regarding the use of RPA. Contact us for a no-frills chat today
